Asking For Help and Buying Houses
I have spent the last two years making a serious point of avoiding reading about Tamoxifen side effects and complaints about Tamoxifen (trust me, there are many out there). You could almost call me a professional Tamoxifen-reader-avoider. While I was in treatment, I just didn’t want to know what I was in for for the next 5 years. Rumor has it possibly now 10 years based on a new study. Ugh…
So my larger emotional ups and downs can directly be traced to shortly after I started Tamoxifen. I thought it was my ending treatment and not being sure how to face “real life” again (which it could still be), or it is a constant hormone imbalance. Hormones, how do I love thee, oh my long lost hormones… When you are in a consistent state of hormone mix up you truly forget what it is like to have all of those lovely addictive hormones coursing through your veins. I had a taste of the difference when I had to pause Tamoxifen treatment while we figured out what was causing my dizzy spells (how many times can YOU fit the word “hormones” in one paragraph?).
So what do you do when you are having mood swings from hormonal imbalances? You buy a house. The right answer is… that you buy a house.
I threatened to do it last year and talked myself out of it. Prices are starting to go up and I don’t think interest rates are too far behind, so now felt like the right time. That, and I was having a discussion with a friend, where I admitted that the reason I was scared of buying a new house was because I was scared of the financial burden if my cancer came back. This made me come to the realization that cancer can’t rule my life, I can’t live like that, I won’t live like that. So, we went house shopping. We didn’t know that we would find the one that checked off all of the right boxes, but we did, 3 days after we started looking.
Mike is excited, I am excited, everyone is excited. Except now I need to buy more furniture because the new house is much bigger, but that is going to have to wait…
I am seeing experienced professionals on this emotional imbalance topic to see what we can do to get me more regulated. I think an important part of the healing process is knowing when to ask for help, and I asked for help..
